His gravy train keeps hitting rough patches, the latest from Cory Briggs and OCCORD, who have called for the District Attorney to investigate conflict of interest charges for the Anaheim City Council majority and their vote on the Gardenwalk hotel subsidy. Their press release reads as follows:

For Immediate Release: Monday, August [12]th, 2013

OCCORD – Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development

DA Urged to Prosecute Anaheim Council Members for Conflict of Interest

Council members received contributions from PAC tied to developer, then voted for $158 million hotel subsidy, says letter by CA attorney.

Contact:
Eric Altman, Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development 714-392-0959 or ealtman@occord.org

Anaheim, CA – A prominent California attorney alleged that members of the Anaheim City Council violated state law when they voted on behalf of a $158 million hotel subsidy, after accepting contributions from a PAC tied to the project’s developer. Attorney Cory Briggs urged California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas to prosecute the council members in a letter sent Thursday. Briggs’ request for prosecution was made on the behalf of a community organization, Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development and a private Anaheim resident named in the letter.

The letter alleges that Anaheim City Council members Lucille Kring and Jordan Brandman had an illegal conflict of interest when they voted for the Garden Walk Hotel subsidy in May, within months of accepting donations from the political action committee formed by Support Our Anaheim Resort (SOAR.) Hotelier Bill O’Connell, who benefited from that subsidy, sits on the SOAR Advisory Committee. The letter also names council members Gail Eastman and Kris Murray, who voted in favor of the subsidy and are SOAR Advisory Committee members. Eastman and Murray did not disclose their business relationships with SOAR and O’Connell at the time of the vote, as required by law.

The request for prosecution issued by Briggs is a required legal step before the filing of a private lawsuit. A potential filing would result in another in a recent series of lawsuits faced by the city council on behalf of residents. Last month, a judge ordered a trial in a case brought by the ACLU on behalf of Anaheim voters, alleging that the city’s election system violates the California Equal Voting Rights Act.

The Garden walk subsidy caused controversy, even before the allegations made last week. The subsidy was first passed in January 2012, but that vote was voided after a Superior Court Judge ruled that it violated the Brown Act, California’s open government law, because the public did not receive proper notice.

Prior to that Briggs was involved with the monumental ass-kicking received by Anaheim leaders when their 2012 attempts to subsidize the Gardenwalk Hotel were beaten down by a Judge, following a ruling that the Brown Act was violated in the notice of the meeting,

And you thought it was going to be a dull summer with nothing to do….

Drip, drip, drip.

About Cynthia Ward

I am a truth-teller. It gets me in trouble. But if you ask me if a dress makes you look fat, I will tell you so, and help select another, before you go on television and realize it for yourself. My real friends are expected to be truthful with me as well. A secret shared will be taken to my grave, but lie to me, and it will end up here…on these pages… especially if you are tasked with the stewardship of public resources. I am a registered Republican who disdains the local GOP power structure, a born-again Christian who supports everyone’s right to spend their lives with the partner of their choosing. I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister. I am a loyal friend to those who merit that friendship and when crossed I am a bitch with a capital C. I do not fit into a box, nor do I see others through the stereotypes that politics and public affairs so often tries to shoehorn us into. I think for myself, and so do you. Welcome to our shared space in this world.

38 Comments

You are quite the Pharisee, Cynthi. I just saw your Facebook swoon about how wonderful the Mayor’s prayer breakfast is and how people are “truly there to pray” – even as you actively participate with the execrable Vern Nelson’s attempt to falsely claim I do work for strip clubs. That is a lie. And as one of the purveyors of that lie, that makes you a liar — all your pretensions about being a truth-teller notwithstanding.

It’s clear you are one of those drama-queen types who get so worked up over an issue or cause or candidate that you believe anything you are justified in saying or doing anything in their defense is justified — even spreading a lie. Sad to see you have become the very kind of person you used to denounce.

Vern clarified the headline upon challenge, Matt. No one’s saying that you worked directly for strip clubs — although your work on behalf of conferring business legitimacy of your clients, who owned those clubs (even if a step or two removed) certainly was to their benefit.

Hmmm … I’ll stop there and wait for your rationalization of the fact that your work boosted profits at strip clubs by economically boosting their owners.

What Vern did was tacitly admit to being reckless with the facts. And elsewhere, he admits his deliberately misled readers and that his purpose was to damage me. Cynthia admits her purpose was to damage me, as well.

And when I read comments like this from you, Greg, I can’t help but conclude that anybody can graduate from law school.

Matt, let’s be clear here. Everything I have ever said on this or any other blog has been backed up with documents. The fact that those documents tend to call bullshit on you and your buddies is your problem, not mine. That you get wadded up by the truth is not something I am obligated to apologize for.

As far as my behavior being a reflection on my faith, if I was attacking innocent people, or making up lies from thin air, then yes I would be subject not only to the scorn of society but the wrath of the God I call my Savior. You are far from an innocent victim, and the documents I have posted showing your complete line of crap posing as an excuse for your wicked and hypocritical behavior proves that. If you have managed to delude yourself into believing you are the wronged party here, then get some help. The wronged party is the taxpaying public forced to subsidize your existence through payments from OCTA and the Chamber, and I would be a disservice or an unkindness to THEM if I did not shout at the top of my lungs about the parasites that have taken over the checkbook at the City of Anaheim and OCTA.

I think the Chamber finally losing some funding will be the best thing for you in the end. No way is Todd Ament going to scale back his own pay to keep you on board, you will be jettisoned, now that your usefulness is finished, and I am sorry for that in a way, I hate to see anyone lose work. But in the long run, perhaps if you get away from that crowd you might regain the moral compass I know you once held, so it might be a good thing, long term,

But under no circumstances will you play the victim card, not with me in the room. Go home to Orange Matt. Anaheim has been through enough already, and your desperate screeching is not helping make anything better.

Cynthia, I helped a company start a Tilted Kilt franchise in Orange. That’s it. You have dishonestly twisted my work into something it was not, because you have this irrational obsession with me. That you would invest so much time and energy into smearing me because you don’t like my blog…there’s an emotional or psychological screw loose in you somewhere.

As for going home to Orange…how about you tell Vern Nelson, Greg Diamond and Jason Young to go home to their respective cities? Sorry, I forgot – that would require you to stop being a hypocrite.

Matt, I did nothing that you accuse me of. I gave your 700 forms to Vern Nelson, pointing out the monumental hypocrisy of a guy who dismisses the concerns of the Orange Police Department who object to the business plan of Matt’s new client. Figuring the guy must have a great track record of launching restaurants that do not become the nuisances the OPD claims it will be, I looked into the address of the client, which YOU provided on your 700 forms. If you were in such a hurry to deposit that check that you failed to check out your own client, that is not my problem. In short, I have repeated that you reported on a public document that you worked for the OC Restaurant Group, located at the building which houses the California Girls “Gentleman’s club” and that in aiding your client you advocated for dismissing what appear to be valid concerns of the OPD, indeed the same gentleman who appeared at Planning Commission with you, testifying about HIS restaurant and HIS investment, now appears to be involved in litigation of some kind regarding accusations of extremely ungentlemanly conduct.

Now what about those statements is incorrect? Because if you call me a liar one more time, it may be you receiving the notice from an attorney. I have backed up every one of my statements with documents, nearly all of them issued on some form by government agencies, with the exception of the photos I took when i went to the address YOU listed on your 700 forms, just to be sure I was not seeing some glitch on google street view that showed the wrong building tied to the address of the screen.

I think that “go home” point is that I and the others aren’t helping to siphon money from the voters of Anaheim to so as to benefit commercial interests that are paying us to do so. You are. That’s why someone would want you to go away.

I don’t really know why OCCORD emphasized “DA” in their headline, I’ve got to ask them. Of course T-Rack will do nothing. But I believe this celebrated Cory fellow does have pull with AG Kamala – that’s where the action will happen.

Aaron: I didn’t respond because I think Vern or Cynthia would show some decency and integrity and withdraw their smear, or that any of the other little monsters who populate this blog would be persuaded. They believe what they want to believe – truth and facts to the contrary. Vern and Cynthia have twisted the truth into a lie, served it up to them and their regular ankle-biters love it. C’est la vie.

I posted a response for the benefit of the unwitting who might come upon this post and think Vern and Cynthia are doing honest work — and not understand this is simply their weird, vicious, obsessive attempt to hurt someone for disagreeing with them.

Hey hey Mr. Wordsmith: Have you noticed our new masthead? Yes, you may take that as a backhanded compliment at your occasional felicitous turns of phrase. As well as an indication of our pride at being in SO many ways the very opposite of you!

Matt, I shared documents, from meeting minutes and your own 700 forms, while you have not provided a single link for a single piece of your argument. So my documents are lies, and your word is enough to refute original source material? Do you understand how whacked that makes you sound?

Let’s return to the subject of this post, which you conveniently hijacked. Cuz it’s not always all about YOU Matt. Does anyone agree or disagree that the Anaheim Council majority has a business relationship with the Gardenwalk’s owners through SOAR, and should they have disclosed that relationship prior to voting?

“…while you have not provided a single link for a single piece of your argument.

Huh? Are you really this nuts? Did you forget that you are the one making the accusations, Cynthia? The burden isn’t on me to disprove them (even though I already have). I didn’t realize the rule was Cynthia Ward runs around tossing accusations at people, and it is up to them to prove their innocence.

I wish the press release had been specific about which code sections had been violated. This just comes across as a headline grab.

Whether the DA has any stomach for looking into such things remains to be seen, but I remember Vern, that you accepted Susan Kang’s challenge to present evidence of Ackerman’s Fair activities and that disappeared down a rabbit hole.

I ran into her months later at the Bustamante press conference and asked if she had gotten my booklet of evidence. She glared and hissed, yes I did. “And what became of it?” “I gave it to that gentleman over there.” “Who’s he?” “That’s Bill Feccia.” Great, the same guy who did the original whitewash. A rabbit hole by the name of Feccia.

AH! Damn! I just noticed – that there was supposed to be a PDF to go with this – a HUGE PDF, a 101-page document of the letter with supporting docs that will probably answer everyone’s questions in exhaustive detail. Let me figure out if I can upload a file that big onto OJ, then I’ll update the article with a link to it.

I also don’t know how you can be such a Cunningham follower and call yourself a conservative. The conservatives here are Zenger and Cynthia and Ryan. You wouldn’t like it very much if Murray, Eastman, Brandman and Kring were in YOUR town bleeding away all its resources.

Robert Stern, an expert who helped write the political reform act, says the allegations in Briggs’ recent letter are off-base. He said nothing in the act precludes council members from receiving campaign contributions and voting on the contributors’ project. And the business relationship on the SOAR board would only be a conflict if SOAR as an entity financially benefited from the votes, he said.